My weekly routine for productivity | creator & online business owner

foreign here's my hot take being a full-time content creator should not take over your entire life you should be able to live a happy and balanced existence even if the way you make your living is creating stuff for the internet at least that's what I'm trying my best to do and here is how I do it let's rewind the clock a week and I'm going to show you what a week in my life as a full-time content creator looks like how I balance work and other stuff and what my content creation schedule looks like so

you can see how I actually get it all done in a week and also if you stick around to the end of the video I promise you I'm gonna explain what I'm doing here so stick around for that I used to really start my Mornings in a rush like I would basically just get up and immediately go sit down at my laptop and start working and I just found that I never felt good about my day when it started like that if I just started working without like really getting ready and I just still be

wearing my pajamas at noon and feeling completely gross it was not a recipe for Success so now I'm really intentional about waking up early enough that I can have a decent morning routine not anything special I pretty much just scroll on my phone for a little while and then make a smoothie and read my book while I drink it but it ensures that I have time to do the other stuff that's important to me feeling ready for the day like actually putting on a real outfit and doing my very minimal makeup routine I'm just the

kind of person where I feel so much more productive if I feel like I look put together and I'll be honest the fact that I post myself online pretty much every day at the very least on Instagram stories definitely has an impact on this like you know I'm gonna feel more confident if I look like I'm ready to take a photo I've had this merits like Foundation stick advertised to me a lot on Instagram and I did um take the bait and buy it I like it so far after I spilled a huge amount of

regular liquid foundation down my white T-shirt the other day I was like I've got to get a stick I feel like I've tried more elaborate morning routines like including always like working out or journaling or what have you and I've never been able to stick to a morning routine where I'm kind of making myself do stuff I don't like and so that's why I've landed on pretty much just eating breakfast and reading a book and just having a little bit of quiet time when it comes to building habits whether it's around a morning routine or

your content creation I think it's all about developing habits that you actually enjoy doing because then you'll do them just literally these four products that's what I use every day oh and this uh sunscreen so today is an editing day I actually start off my weeks kind of halfway through my YouTube workflow here's a very quick breakdown of how it's going to go so Monday we're going to edit Tuesday finish up the video send it off for brand review Wednesday is actually when the creation process refreshes it starts again and we'll be scripting the video

for the next week Friday is when I film that video and then of course we come back around to Monday which is when I edit so that's pretty much the big task of the day I need to edit this YouTube video I also do just have a couple other random tasks I post reels every Monday Wednesday Friday so I do have that item on my to-do list to post today's reel and pretty much every workday I try to post on Instagram stories as well so that's gonna be the first thing that I do and then

we'll dive into editing laughs [Music] so let's talk about my editing process and a lot of this is going to make more sense once we actually get to Wednesday and I tell you about my scripting process because this very first step is going to depend on the order I shot things in generally I do shoot my videos in chronological order except this time I had a ton of b-roll that I just decided to get out of the way off the Hop so that I'm just going to set aside for the moment and start going through

my a-roll Clips I'll get them all lined up in the sequence and then I just kind of start watching through the video and I do a number of things sort of simultaneously and I don't necessarily recommend that you do this all simultaneously if you're just getting started and you're still kind of you know slow with your editing software of choice but I've been doing this a long time and I do this every single week so I just kind of do it as efficiently as possible first of all I cut out my mistakes and I keep

in the takes that I like so I cut out any gaps where I'm checking my script and if I say something twice I get rid of that mistake then as I'm going I'm going to start searching for the b-roll that I shot for whatever it is I'm talking about so if there's a clip where I'm mentioning brushing your teeth then I will drag in the b-roll clip of me brushing my teeth that I shot earlier at the same time when I get to a point in the video where I need to add a title I

will bring over my little title template and paste it on that part of the timeline adjusting the text obviously also while I'm going through this I'll add my sound effects when I think it's appropriate so every time that I do like a title graphic I will have some kind of like maybe click sound or camera shutter sound to like introduce it and all the while I like to have the background music playing as I edit so that I can get a sense of the vibe of the video as I go so I'll select from my

folder of background music that I use in many videos which you may have noticed I don't know hopefully it's enough in the background that it's not distracting but I like the sound of these tracks and so I use them a lot and that way as I edit I can hear what the background music is going to sound like and I basically can do all these different components adding Graphics adding b-roll adding sound effects and music kind of at the same time as I go through the video and that means that I don't have to watch

the entire thing a million times before it gets uploaded because I'm kind of editing it as I watch it but like I said this is something that I've developed over many years of editing videos when I first got started I would watch the entire thing just cutting out the mistakes to kind of remind myself what I said and what I might want to include more of or less of but because I'm so well practiced at filming YouTube videos I kind of film them knowing how I'm going to edit them later which makes the editing process

more efficient so now that I've completed the entire edit basically what's left to do is write the description including the time codes table of contents design a thumbnail and get this uploaded to YouTube so that it's ready to send off to the brand tomorrow since I finished editing this morning it's now the afternoon I'm actually gonna head out to a coffee shop to complete those tasks because they're a little bit more chill a little bit more you know I can listen to a podcast as well I work on the thumbnail that kind of thing which

I always really enjoy and yeah I want to get out of the house [Music] foreign [Music] just after 4 P.M and I'm pretty much done my to-do list for the day so I I'm gonna stop working now I have a yoga class booked at 5 PM so until then I am going to do my little online Spanish class and we'll get back to work tomorrow I feel like in the past I really struggled with you know feeling like I need to fill every hour of the work day I still kind of I still kind of

have that feeling but I'm trying to stop when the to-do list is complete and do other things instead of just being on the cycle of always working more so that's what we're gonna do and we will get back to work tomorrow [Music] so I booked myself a Spanish class this morning before uh work starts and let's go I've always kind of a bit nervous but okay let's do it [Music] yo Bebo on Canada a or E iyo soy de Canada [Music] I literally just made that plus in time but anyway I came up here because

I've got an appointment at 10 45 and I thought I'll come and sit in this coffee shop and work until that appointment and then I will go back home so that is the plan so while I'm at the cafe I am tackling the major admin tasks of the day the first one is sending off the links to the Branded content that went live this morning because Tuesday is my posting day so I'm sending off the links and the invoice as well as replying to comments that are coming in on the video and on my Instagram

reel the second major admin task of the day is sending the link off for my video next week so the one that's going to go live seven days from today sending that to next week's brand sponsor to have it reviewed after that I've got my brow appointment here's the before and this is the after and then I'm just gonna head home on the bus and now we are here it is just about lunch time I'm doing a little bit of other admin stuff and preparing for my meeting this afternoon every Tuesday afternoon I meet with

Shelby who works at craterly craterly is my social media content creation agency so she's the team lead at Creator and she also helps me with some of my like influencer business stuff she runs the Creator letter which is My Weekly Newsletter she also helps me with the Creator Club podcast in addition to managing the team over at creatorly media so yeah actually if you didn't know I have a Weekly Newsletter called The Creator letter where we share Creator industry news the latest reels trends that you might want to follow and just general advice and encouragement

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of your customer data to serve your email list better and drive better results so if you're thinking of integrating email marketing into your overall content strategy as a Creator or online business owner I highly recommend checking out HubSpot you can find out more info at the link in the description below [Music] normally at two coffee shops in one day person but I had this appointment in uptown anyway and then my friend Sarah wanted to go to Starbucks this afternoon so sue me [Music] it's a new day it is Wednesday morning and I am going to

kick off my work day by First Recording some reels and then recording a podcast later this afternoon we're going to get around to writing my script for YouTube and there's a few other admin things throughout the day but those are the primary goals of a Wednesday so let's get to it [Music] oh all right so I am done shooting my reels and I just really quickly imported all of the footage from those reels onto my laptop did a few quick revisions that a brand had requested for the video that I'm posting next week so exported

that going to upload that and like send it kind of for like secondary approval or whatever later today but I need to take advantage of my free Airwaves and record the podcast now yes I could sit at my desk to record the podcast but I've kind of gotten to a habit of sitting on the couch because it's more comfortable and I tell myself the audio is better over here but it's not that far away [Music] so the reels recording is done the podcast recording is done now I need to eat a quick lunch and actually

head out again because this afternoon I have a meeting with my accountant fun business owner things but actually in kind of a nerdy way I do look forward to this kind of thing I have done a lot of research into Canadian tax law and stuff but anyway I just want to make sure that I'm doing everything correctly and buy the book so we are heading to actually my hometown this afternoon because that's where my accountant is and I'm gonna work for the afternoon from my mom's restaurant basically the one local spot you can get a

coffee and sit for a while and it's a beautiful space so we love to do that I swear I don't normally run around this much in a week but it is what it is we're headed to the accountant now well technically I am the sole owner of my business Dan is a shareholder and um I don't think I technically am like your director advisor you're a director you're listed on the corporation as a directorate but I own zero percent of the company therefore I am not a shareholder yeah that's true but I think I I

may be giving you the title of like director of the Vlog Channel Department oh really right now [Music] [Music] I think we had a fairly productive meeting with our accountant got some questions answered so that's great so now back here at mum's restaurant to uh finish out the work day it's like four o'clock so I'm gonna finish writing this YouTube script which has been on my list like all day I need to get that finished that'll be done for the day for the sake of you understanding my time management with this I probably spent like

an hour earlier just like really trying to come up with the right topic for this video like looking through my analytics going through my list of ideas searching different titles seeing how they ranked in search putting them on thumbs up.tv to see how the title would look with a thumbnail all that stuff until I settled on what my actual title is going to be and now I will probably spend about the next hour actually writing this script like the words that I'm gonna say in the video and as I go as I write the script

and I think of like how could I visually represent this part of the script I will make a note of potential b-roll that I could include with it so that's kind of what my process is like to writing these [Music] good morning it's Thursday first thing on the agenda this morning is another Spanish class so I have that from nine to ten and then the major tasks on my to-do list today are editing those reels that I filmed getting them all ready for posting next week I've got some sponsored content that I prepared last week

that needs to go live today so I need to post that on Instagram and then send off the invoice and then I have a few things to review for creatorly so I need to review our Weekly Newsletter and the Instagram content that's gonna go live next week so that's what's on the to-do list for today first up Spanish lessons [Music] I'll be honest I'm feeling a little low energy today so I'm moving to the couch for a more comfy work experience I feel like I've had the date full and productive week like every day has

just been really busy which I like but today I'm just kind of like uh I still feel like I have a lot to get done and not all of the energy to get it done but we're just gonna try to be gentle with ourselves and and continue on as much as I can so first things first I need to review the Creator letter for next week so Shelby from my team actually writes the Creator letter each week and she also produces the Instagram content for the creatorly media account so every Thursday I review both of

those and just kind of do a check over and make sure everything looks good before it gets posted [Music] foreign [Music] it's Friday and my hair is greasy and I've got to film a video so we're doing a little baseball cap look today yesterday ended up not being quite as productive as I would have wanted but sometimes you just gotta slow down and take care of yourself so that's what I decided to do I may or may not actually get my Vlog edited this week something that I don't think I've talked about in this video

is that on top of all the work that I do for this Channel and creatorly I'm also trying to grow a travel Vlog Channel and so I normally am editing a video for the Katie and Daniel van Channel every week too um but we might miss this week also because part of what has made this week busy is that we're packing to leave on our next big trip so this is what all of my camera gear looks like at the moment because I've been packing it up into the like storage bags that I'm going to

keep it in in the van so I'm gonna get my camera out of there we're gonna set up and film a YouTube video this morning and then I'll tell you more about where we're going foreign [Music] this is my very legit lighting setup but I really find that when I sit with the window on one side and then just the apartment on the other side one half of my face is really left in Shadow and so I just set this little guy up to help balance that out a little bit so this is what it

looks like when I have this extra LED light panel and here's what it looks like without so you can just see like there's a lot of light coming in this way but there's a lot of Shadow here so if I do this just kind of helps light up this side of my face [Music] I'll be honest with you this is the classic point about halfway through filming a video where you start to question yourself and it's like I hope this is interesting I hope this is going to be a mess of a video like every

single one I put so much like thought and effort into and it means a lot to me how it performs and uh this always feels like a Tipping Point like when I'm still in the planning stages I'm like okay it could be awesome this could be my like next viral hit but then once I start filming it it's like now I'm bringing this into reality and it's starting to solidify this as a video and then I start to think like oh maybe I'm not getting my point across clearly maybe the Lightning's not good or maybe

like this whole subject isn't even that interesting I I really like get in my head during the filming process and uh yeah I hope I hope this video he goes okay [Music] so on Friday I mentioned that I was going to be going on a big trip in the van and that is where I am now I am currently on route to Yellowstone National Park Somewhere in southern Minnesota at the moment and don't worry I'm going to continue to share my best content creation and social media tips right here from my van so my videos

aren't going anywhere oh geez will remember early 2022 when I was doing just that I was making videos from the back of the van but my gear has improved considerably so it's gonna look a little bit better that's my Hope anyway this is honestly a very challenging space to shoot in because of what the lighting looks like but hopefully this looks okay and I'm hoping that the videos uh but if you want to see more about this trip make sure you subscribe to Katie and Dan and Evan because that's we're going to be sharing our

videos and I actually am really going to try to do more short form content over on our Instagram and Tick Tock I really want to try to grow those platforms so let me know if you might want to see a video of my journey of trying to grow a brand new account in a different Niche because I think that might be interesting um but yeah that's a week in my life if you made it to this point in the video honestly we're officially best friends so drop a hey in the comments because I would love

to chat with you and thank you for watching and of course another big thank you to HubSpot make sure to check out their free email marketing tools and as always I hope that you are having adventures and following your dreams and I will see you in the next video bye